Dave Meltzer stuff

[jdw]

That review of Anderson/Angle is pretty disturbing. Guys nearly kill each other several times. One of them is a dude with a history of injuries that helped turn him into a junkie that people (seemingly including Dave) worried would end up dead. Here he is not only putting himself back at risk, but also getting his opponent to be an idiot. I love the notion that the GS was done in a way where "everyone meant something" when not only it by the following ankle lock was blown off with a mic check, which in turn was blown off with an Olympic Slam.

 

Modern wrestling and modern star ratings and modern willingness to ignore all those risky injury inducing spots because it's "fun". I'm thinking Misawa's finally match deserves to be *****+ because it sold the realism of pro wrestling moves.

 

John

[kjh]

Abyss, Morgan and Anderson all had not only their career best matches with him, but matches that nobody could have conceived any of them could have had beforehand.

In the big picture, what did this *really* mean? Did Angle with his performance make those wrestlers bigger stars to the TNA audience or did he just get himself over? Will any casual fans or even hardcore ones fondly remember these matches in 5, 10, 15 years down the line? TNA's PPVs are the American mainstream wrestling equivalent of an empty forest.

 

I mean Jeff Jarrett did a good job of carrying an assortment of wrestlers in the early days of TNA, without the need I might add of taking nutty risks on a surgically repaired neck. Is anyone championing him for the Observer Hall Of Fame?

[Dylan Waco]

It means Dave is an Angle fanboy.

 

Angle has not just NOT been in a draw in TNA. He has traded at WELL BELOW his name value as the companies "big star."

[Jingus]

Angle has not just NOT been in a draw in TNA. He has traded at WELL BELOW his name value as the companies "big star."

Nobody is a draw in TNA. Heck, Angle is the closest they've had to a draw, since their record-best PPV buyrates have featured him in the main events. Yet they were still only, what, around 60,000 buys or so?

 

What is a "draw" now? The WWE has few, if any at all. Cena is the only one is said to truly matter, yet the company doesn't seem to take any sharp down-turns in business when he's on the shelf for injuries. Is anyone really a draw now? I wonder if the whole business model of the industry has changed so much that only brands matter. WWE has their brand over with the fans, and TNA clearly doesn't, and that seems to be the immovable constant.

[ohtani's jacket]

If Gotch and Hackenschmidt were alive today, wouldn't they latch onto whatever made them a buck? Seems like there'd be more money in claiming they were in the original MMA fights than being part of the wrestling fraternity.

[kjh]

Yeah, OJ's right. Gotch and Hackenschmidt were carnies through and through. They'd be trying to peddle the lost art of catch wrestling to gullible amateur fighters if they were alive today.

[jdw]

It depends on what we're talking about.

 

If they were alive like Lou was alive when MMA started, they would have acted just like Lou. I don't recall Lou putting over MMA as having much of a relation to what he did, and actually took his shots at it early on while putting over the great wrestling "shooters" instead. Perhaps on the Lou Board he was saying positive things about UFC before dying, but I don't really recall it. In his book?

 

I also wouldn't put much into his support of UWFi: they paid him. New Japan and All Japan weren't paying him at that point. While he might have drawn a line at shilling for FMW, Lou would have put over any promotion that paid him to the degree that UWFi did.

 

For the most part, old timers in all sports and entertainment put over what went on in their day. They're hardly revolutionaries, and any "revolution" they support is to drag things back to how they were in their days. I think if you scratch the surface of people in wrestling who put over UFC relative to the WWE, they're not arguing that the WWE should become UFC. They're talking about taking UFC "elements" to incorporate into Pro Wrestling (i.e. fake worked pro wrestling).

 

John

[Guest Slickster]

Angle has not just NOT been in a draw in TNA. He has traded at WELL BELOW his name value as the companies "big star."

Nobody is a draw in TNA. Heck, Angle is the closest they've had to a draw, since their record-best PPV buyrates have featured him in the main events. Yet they were still only, what, around 60,000 buys or so?

 

What is a "draw" now? The WWE has few, if any at all. Cena is the only one is said to truly matter, yet the company doesn't seem to take any sharp down-turns in business when he's on the shelf for injuries. Is anyone really a draw now? I wonder if the whole business model of the industry has changed so much that only brands matter. WWE has their brand over with the fans, and TNA clearly doesn't, and that seems to be the immovable constant.

 

I agree 100%. I think Vince himself saw the big lesson from the Monday Night Wars as "make sure that no individual talent is bigger than the WWE brand itself." TNA has acquired some of WWE's top talents, yet none of those stars has been able to elevate TNA to seriously affect WWE's business.

 

Kurt Angle was one of WWE's top stars for almost seven years, headlining WrestleMania and getting consistent crowd reactions. When Kurt Angle left WWE, they simply replaced him in their video packages, put his merchandise on clearance, and elevated someone else to fill his place on the card...and it had zero net impact on WWE's business.

 

There's a reason WWE doesn't promote specific lineups for house shows; the promise of seeing 'WWE Superstars Live' is enough of a sell by itself. The WWE machine is so good at promoting itself that they have effectively made wrestlers replaceable parts. This is bad for the talent but good for the long-term survival of the WWE business.

 

TNA, like WCW in the 1990s, labored under the belief that wrestling fans will follow their favorites to TNA, so signing Wrestler X means they will draw all the fans that used to watch Wrestler X's segments on TV. That's no longer the case. WWE could replace the SmackDown roster with the FCW roster this week and it wouldn't have a significant long-term effect on ratings/live gates because the WWE brand name sells so well.

 

TNA's failure was in their inability to develop, market, and adhere to a specific brand position for their product. ECW has had more of an impact on the business than TNA has had, yet they existed for less time than TNA has. ECW created a cohesive look, feel, and booking style to their product and they stuck with it until the very end. What does TNA stand for? It's a roster comprised mostly of WWE castoffs. To a casual fan there's no reason to watch this product if it's not substantially different from Raw or SmackDown.

[KrisZ]

Lou worked for Joe Blanchard in 1983 and they were as blood and guts as it got at that time period so he was basically a whore to whoever would give him the check.

[Bix]

"Most amusing promotion Lou Thesz whored himself out to" is a potentially fun topic. If we're going just by ones he did the belt shtick with then it's either Southwest for blood (and manure) reasons or SAPW for "Giving his belt to a recent TBS jobber" reasons.

[Herodes]

I once saw a tape of Lou Thesz doing commentary with Les Thatcher for Savoldi's ICW in the mid 80s. I think it was around the time Kevin Sullivan was rehashing his devil worshiping shtick in the north east and he'd brought in Maniac Mark, Woman, Luna and King Curtis. Given that ICW was a pretty bottom of the barrel territory I can't imagine they paid too much either.

[jdw]

Lou worked for Joe Blanchard in 1983 and they were as blood and guts as it got at that time period so he was basically a whore to whoever would give him the check.

Don't disagree with that one. But suspect he would have draw the line with FMW. More obviously over the top, while Southwest wasn't terribly far removed from Memphis, where Lou worked in the 70s. FMW was those things taken to 11.

 

Lou's relationship with UWFi died in 1995. He died in 2002. He continued to have contact with Japan up until the point he died. I think that if there was a chance he'd work with an FMW-style promotion simply because they waved $10K in his face, it would have happened. I didn't.

 

Not saying that makes Lou noble. It doesn't. He was more than willing to work for a lot of promotions for $$$, and the notion of him never doing anything to expose the old style of work has been proven a myth long ago. We've all seen the dog bone spot.

 

John

[Jingus]

From some of the wacky old stories surrounding Nick Gulas, you'd assume that one would be high on the list. Thesz even ripped up that territory in his book, while not quite explaining why he worked there for so long.

 

We've all seen the dog bone spot.

I haven't. What's that? (Lou is probably number one on my list for "Wrestler Whose Matches I've Seen Incredibly Few Of, Despite Having Read His Autobiography" for obvious reasons. I've probably only caught a dozen of his bouts, at most.)

[Guest Slickster]

Evidently Thesz cleared the ring with a Moondog bone once in Einhorn's IWA promotion.

[BruiserBrody]

SAPW for "Giving his belt to a recent TBS jobber"

San Antonio Pro Wrestling?

 

and Who?

[Guest Slickster]

SAPW was South Atlantic Pro Wrestling based out of Florida.

 

From WildBBrown's DVDs of the promotion:

 

Episode #2

Hosts: Tedd Webb & Gene Ligon

? The American Bulldogs vs. Jerry Rose & Rick Salagle

? Brad Anderson & Colt Steele vs. David Isley & Brian Johnson

? Ricky Steamboat & Chris Chavis vs. Allen Kensey & Sammy Martin

~ Talent Enhancement Extraordinaire MARK FLEMING is introduced as the INTERNATIONAL HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, the same title once held by Lou Thesz!

? Bob Orton Jr. vs. Lynn Wagner

? Vince Torrelli (w/Paul Jones) vs. Mike Rexx

~ Interviews include the likes of Lou Thesz, Ricky Steamboat, Chris Chavis, Bo Ragin, Paul Jones, Nasty Boys, Mark Fleming

[Bix]

SAPW was in the Carolinas.

[CodySave]

I considered putting this in the Indy Wrestling in Middle America thread, but quite frankly, we've been doing Dave Meltzer's dream cross-promoting this month here in Des Moines - roller derby and pro wrestling!

 

First, there was this at our last 3XW event on May 7th:

 

 

Malia Hosaka defeated Claudia Del Solis after an impressive facebuster. Solis, an impressive newcomer to 3XW that won over the crowd, was accompanied at ringside by members of the Mid Iowa Rollers roller derby team, who have bouts on May 15th and May 22nd at Hy-Vee Hall. Visit http://www.midiowarollers.com for more details.

And then, last night, myself, Rory Fox and Hunter Matthews appeared at a roller derby bout, which of course led to a brawl - nothing like a piledriver being teased by a bad guy in a shimmery jacket in 2010!:

 

 

3XWrestling stars Rory Fox, Hunter Matthews and Midnight Guthrie appear at halftime of a Mid Iowa Rollers bout on May 22, 2010 at Hy-Vee Hall. All three men took part to promote 3XW's June 4th Downtown Destruction event at the Des Moines Social Club, but eventually things broke down between Fox and Matthews....

[kjh]

Dave Meltzer on why WWE has consigned the sneaky Japanese heel to the dustbin of wrestling history:

 

The gimmick was killed was the WWE's TV affiliate in Los Angeles refused to air Yokozuna matches unless they clamped down on the racist angle with Jim Duggan and toned down the racist commentary.

 

In other words, our society has changed, the Japanese political groups would get them shut down and sponsors would pull out, so no, you couldn't do it.

[Bix]

I haven't seen that stuff in years...how overtly racist was it? Standard Japanese heel stuff or further?

[Strummer]

Racism? It was just usual pro wrestling jingoistic schlock IIRC

[El-P]

I always hated those jingoist angles. Flag wearing, U-S-A chanting Hacksaw Duggan might be one the most annying wrestling character ever to me. What was probably the most racist about those was that Yoko was of course a Samoan, managed by an Hawaiian, both american-born citizen portraying evil japanese because you know, they have those slanted eyes...

[kjh]

Dailymotion video of Yokozuna vs Hacksaw Jim Duggan-Knockdown Challenge

 

Yeah, just a typical Pearl Harbor salt throwing ambush angle with the added bonus of American flag desecration.

[Guest Slickster]

I always wondered how that stuff played to UK and Canadian audiences...

[rovert]

Duggan really amplified the xenophobia due to the big and dumbness of his character.